pizza karlsruhe, excerpt.
Pizza Karlsruhe has been the example designed to explain and show the idea and concept of the Pizza Regionale magazine. it includes 14 episodes of town history, written by myself and based on historical facts combined with personal thoughts. combined with the illustrations they show all the events through my eyes and at the same point give away bits and pieces about myself.
a beer and a bed, bureaucracy in Baden. If you were looking for an inn in the days of the foundation you didn’t have to try hard. Common parlance at first and pretty soon also the officials used to call the streets by the names of the taverns located on them.
They had actually been named after the knights of the Fidelitas Order but names like ‹Graf Leiningische Gasse› or ‹Löwencranzische Gasse› just were too complicated for everyday usage.
The fact that their new names took hold says a lot about the nature of the people of Baden – that those names soon became official about its bureaucracy who used to meet at the taverns because there didn’t exist a proper room for meetings, yet.
The inns are gone, but Kronenstraße, Lammstraße, Adlerstraße, Waldhornstraße, etc. show how important taverns were and still are for the townsmen of Karlsruhe.
1915, aerial warfare. Due to its location close to the border Karlsruhe faced a bigger risk to be aggressed in wartimes. War came, from the sky. The French wanted to destroy arsenals, the train station and military bases so on June 15th, 1915 they conducted the first air strike that hit the population unprepared. You could have thought there hadn’t been any exercise. More than 100 houses were destroyed, 29 people hurt.
The second strike just a week later made the people go out on the streets and rooftops to watch. It was planned that 25 bombers were attacking the train station. The pilots however navigated according to old maps where the new station wasn’t drawn in, yet. Instead they headed for the area where the old train station had been located. There the circus Hagenbeck had just pitched camp…
The writer Ernst von Salomon who was based in Karlsruhe at that time reported: «In the circus the laughing increased to screeching and screaming, three times dumb Augustin tumbled off the chair on which he was making faces behind the equerry’s back. Each time he bumped on his bum the bass drum made a gorgeous, a magnificent beat which for a moment of shock took the crowd’s breath.
And again he tumbled, what a beat, what a laughter began, every muscle strained for laughter, but there was a second beat and it wasn’t made by the drum, it was a beat with flashes, rumbling and cannonade and it started irrupting from the sky, frazzled the canvas with a fizzling noise, it dehisced and a fist banged down, soughed and burst. The clown was lying in the sand and the sand was red.»
The town moaned about 120 dead, among them 72 children, and the mayor affronted the French to be a «vengeful and vitriolic neighbouring nation». He forgot to mention that the German had ambushed France. The bereaved didn’t care.
residence of justice, tulip war.
«RESIDENCE OF JUSTICE, THAT’S NOT ONLY A BRAND FOR KARLSRUHE BUT FOR THE REPUBLIC. YOU COULD ABSOLUTELY CALL THE GERMAN STATE ‹REPUBLIC OF KARLSRUHE›. FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL COURT, FEDERAL COURT OF JUSTICE, FEDERAL ADVOCACY ARE AS THE THIRD POWER OF THE STATE ALL UNITED HERE WITH A SENSIBLE DISTANCE FROM THE LEGISLATIVE.» Jochen Gerz
Karlsruhe is an important location for Germany. What is decided behind the dignified walls of the Federal Constitutional Court, the Federal Court of Justice and the Federal Advocacy is immoveable – a fact you could be really proud of unless…
When the Prinz-Max-Palais got too small for the Federal Constitutional Court president Gerhard Müller would have loved to move into the castle with his bureau. That was too much – the castle belongs to the citizens of Karlsruhe. Still the space problem had to be solved.
The government threatened to move the Federal Constitutional Court to Munich.The only acceptable building site was at the botanic garden close to the castle. It was the place where the courtly theatre had been situated. It had been bombed in World War II, but the citizens dreamt of a reconstruction.
With the new building for the Federal Constitutional Court there dream was frustrated – the pride of the Residence of Justice of the recidencial citizens began to disintegrate.
The new building would cover up a part of the Botanic Garden and the party is spoiled when there’s flowers involved. After all Karlsruhe was founded by a flower lover. The city fathers prevailed and Karlsruhe stayed Residence of Justice. The population accepted their fate and the pride of the town got the upper hand back.
Just in the 21st century the Federal Constitutional Court again burst all the seams. Where could you put a new building in the city centre? Again there was a space problem, but it wasn’t to be the only handicap.
The architect’s children fought an extension before there was any concrete plan because an outbuilding would violate their father’s copyright. But what could possibly deform that building anyway?
When there was finally an agreement made with the architect’s family the flower lovers started protesting. An extension would cover another part of the Botanic Garden. It will take years until the people of Karlsruhe can call their home proudly and with no bitterness Residence of Justice again.
